Hyeon-myeong felt a twinge of pity watching those petite shoulders, which looked scarcely half the breadth of his own, tremble so faintly.
“…”
Hong Yu-yeon answered with her back turned to him. Her choked voice sounded utterly miserable, yet oddly enough, it also felt a little like a child throwing a tantrum.
Hyeon-myeong was someone who had never comforted anyone before. Offering solace for sorrow whose cause was unknown felt doubly bewildering. It briefly crossed his mind that this one-sided attentiveness might only make her feel more uncomfortable.
Even so, he did not want to leave Hong Yu-yeon on her own.
Hyeon-myeong offered a plausible justification to coax her.
After a long silence, Yu-yeon’s voice drifted over.
To her listless murmur, Hyeon-myeong replied with an amused smile and unshakeable confidence.
Yu-yeon slightly turned her head as if nettled.
He caught a brief glimpse of her face, flushed entirely crimson from crying her heart out. It was so fleeting that he wondered whether he had just seen a person’s face or a ripe tomato.
“…”
Ah.
She saw it.
Overcome by emotion again at her own words, Hong Yu-yeon wept sorrowfully. Still keeping her back to Hyeon-myeong, she curled herself into an even tighter ball.
Fortunately, once the floodgates were opened, the words seemed to spill out with ease.
While Hong Yu-yeon had been lying in a coma, generative AI had made its public debut.
Back then, Hyeon-myeong had thought of her first as well. He had wondered how this woman, so brimming with pride in her own talents, would react when she finally encountered it belatedly.
Now, at this very moment, he was witnessing the answer to that vague curiosity firsthand. Watching Hong Yu-yeon grieve her heart out before his eyes, Hyeon-myeong was thrown into the torment of holding back his laughter.
He had spoken up cautiously, thinking it might be better to reason with her than offer clumsy words of comfort, but the moment he opened his mouth, Yu-yeon cut him off short.
Incensed by Hyeon-myeong’s dismissive opening, Yu-yeon spun around to face him directly and demanded,
…That just sounded like she had narrowly escaped becoming an indentured lab servant.
With that final burst of indignation, Yu-yeon turned her back on him again.
…How was one supposed to comfort someone anyway?
Blinking behind Hong Yu-yeon’s turned back, Hyeon-myeong pulled out his phone and typed a prompt into OpenAI. After carefully reading through the response, he rose from his seat and stepped out of the hospital room.
Click.
At the sound of the door closing, Yu-yeon curled in on herself a little more. She had wanted him to leave, yet when he walked away without another word, she felt a slight pang of disappointment.
Still, she couldn’t go dragging someone else into a hopeless pit of despair.
Yu-yeon pulled the blanket over her head, deciding she would nurse her sorrow for a few more days before sending him a text.
Knock, knock. Click.
Hyeon-myeong returned just ten minutes later.
At the voice calling out to her in a tone noticeably brighter than before, Yu-yeon replied without turning around.
She was surprised he had returned and felt a little guilty too, but having exhausted so much energy crying, she simply lacked the strength to deal with anyone. She had wept so hard that waves of dizziness were washing over her.
“…”
She had been trying to send the man away without revealing any more of her petty thoughts or making an even bigger fool of herself. But at his last words, her tightly shut eyes snapped open.
Slowly, Yu-yeon turned her head.
Ten minutes earlier, Hyeon-myeong had consulted OpenAI with his dilemma. He had asked what to do when one was terrible at comforting someone but needed to do it anyway.
The AI had offered several suggestions. Among them, the one best suited to his capabilities was a ‘gift.’
—If you are worried because you aren’t good at comforting others, prepare a gift.
The dilemma, however, was what to give. As he pondered, he remembered something Yu-yeon’s younger sister, Jeong-yeon, had once said about her: that her sister would leap out of a dead sleep if bread was involved.
He also recalled how Yu-yeon had rambled about her father not too long ago. Even then, she had spent ten minutes talking about memories tied to bread.
Hyeon-myeong had searched for nearby bakeries. Though there was a franchise bakery inside the hospital, he wanted to bring something known for being exceptionally delicious. Fortunately, a famous bakery was just a few minutes’ drive away. He had immediately gotten into his car and headed straight there.
Out of the vast selection, the one Hyeon-myeong picked was red bean bread. At that stage, he had enlisted the help of a doctor friend. On the doctor’s recommendation that red bean bread was the best choice in terms of texture and nutrition from the bread and filling, Hyeon-myeong had picked it up.
It happened to be the bakery’s signature item as well, and the description boasting a smooth filling made with organic red beans had seemed reassuring.
And so, he had returned to the hospital with a single pastry in hand. Simply hoping that it might bring Hong Yu-yeon even the slightest bit of comfort.
Hearing that Hyeon-myeong had returned with bread, Yu-yeon finally peeked her head around toward him.
Red bean bread…
I love it…
Her mouth watered before she even caught sight of the real thing.
At Hyeon-myeong’s question, Yu-yeon almost burst into tears for an entirely different reason.
It had been only a few hours since she told her stickler of a doctor that she wanted to eat bread, only to be flatly ignored.
Yu-yeon knew it too. She knew bread was pushing it given her current physical condition.
But what could she do when her heart yearned for it? Just as people smoked knowing it ruined their health, she knew it was bad for her body, but nothing else nourished her soul quite like it.
Before she even realized it, Yu-yeon pushed herself upright. It was the first time she had sat up without letting out a single groan.
See? Bread really is great for mental health.
Hyeon-myeong offered the bread to her. Lacking any flashy decoration, the bun was plump and domed in the center, looking as tender and pillowy as a baby’s bottom. Eating it felt like it would bring back her own healthy, lovely flesh.
Yu-yeon murmured in a daze,
The man persuaded her in an utterly reassuring voice. Yu-yeon tore her eyes from the bread and looked up at him. That natural smile of his looked like an angel’s, yet somehow like a demon’s as well.
Liar. Who does he think he is, God?
She denied it in her mind, yet Yu-yeon desperately wanted to believe him. Because she wanted that bread.
Looking at the wrapper, it was from a famous bakery she recognized. She had tried other pastries from there, but never their red bean bread, which made her crave it all the more.
And Hyeon-myeong delivered the final touch.
Chew thirty times? That was exactly what her dad used to tell her.
If he goes that far, I have to eat it just to be polite…
In the end, Yu-yeon tore open the wrapper. Unveiled before her, the red bean bread looked even more radiant.
They were about to turn me into Jean Valjean over not letting me eat bread.
With eyes brimming with deep emotion, Yu-yeon opened wide and took a hearty bite.